For a long second, Balthazar’s body hung there, as stiff and finicky about balance as one of those little green army men. It was as if he didn’t know whether he should pitch backward into the opened tomb, or face plant onto the ground.
She kneed him in the groin.
Goddess, that felt good.
Stunned now in more ways than one, Balthazar fell like a downed tree. It would’ve been more satisfying to watch him plummet into the depths of the tomb, but he was twisted and went sideways, like a log landing as the cherry on top of a well-constructed beaver dam. Well, at least this way he could watch asthis princessdestroyed his plan.
“What was that about how I was never going to win?” Embry asked his prone form. “Looks like I just did.”
Jumping off the tomb, she gave the magical signal to those in the know that it was time to finish off the sorcerers, because their leader was down for the count:BOOM!
Embry’s trusty sound spell ricocheted around the cemetery, blowing the concentration of every sorcerer not expecting it. As the Hales’ hands flew up to their ears in involuntary surprise, the witches, led by Ames and Fairfax, laid hands on their bare skin, stunning the sorcerers. The other coven members caught on immediately, one witch in each pair or trio quick enough on the draw to copy the strategy Embry and her friends employed. Even Rye lunged up from his knees (No head injury, then? Phew!) andnailed a Hale sorcerer right between his shoulder blades with a stun spell that sent him face-first into the cemetery lawn.
One by one, they went down like dominos.
“Tie ’em up!” Embry yelled as she, Rye (one-handed), Fairfax, and Ames unloaded their pockets, spelled to bursting with the complete contents of Lazarus’s robust necktie collection. They were the handiest implements they’d had available to enchant with a strengthening spell and then hide away just in case they ran into more of an army than they’d bargained for.
Daddy didn’t comment when Embry flung a tie toward him—he simply accepted the gorgeous silk and got to work executing a sturdy Palomar knot. She’d apologize later.
Embry saved one tie for herself—a favorite of Daddy’s—and whirled around to bind Balthazar with her own well-practiced Palomar (yay for living in a fishing hub). This was working perfectly to plan. This was—
Embry’s train of thought was cut off by a man emerging from the depths of the tomb hideout with the dramatic flair of a general charging downhillaftera battle had been won. Aside from his striking confidence, this man wore a sharply tailored black suit and Balthazar’s features, aged thirty years. Same slicked-back dark hair, same striking eyes, same showman’s presentation.
Balthazar’s father.
Just as that realization hit her square in the chest, the man confirmed it, stepping over his son with an aggrieved, “Jesus Christ. Never send a boy to do a man’s job.” He sighed loudly and shook his head at the sorcerers, incapacitated on the ground. “That’s the last time I let you lead anything, Balty.”
Balty?For the tiniest of moments, Embry felt horrified for Balthazar that his own father treated him this way. It was a realization that fell away to the certainty that Balthazar hadn’t masterminded this. He’d played a role. And he did his job exactly as prescribed.
Now his father took the credit and the reins, shouting a direct order.
“Sorcerers, drain the well!”
Those words must have been etched deep in Balthazar’s soul, because even though he was still prone and untied, something surged within him. Like the first tremors of an earthquake. Then he began to visibly vibrate, jittering across the stone.
His father loomed above him and the graveyard, drawing his arms upward as if accepting a fount of magic from the sky, but instead, Embry was close enough toseeas oily, dark magic revved within Balthazar like an airplane engine facing a takeoff. The ground beneath her feet began to shake as the incapacitated sorcerers started to visibly vibrate.
And suddenly it was crystal clear to Embry what was going on here. With the order, the coordinated vibration, the mention of the well.
The sorcerers werereallytrying. Just as Balthazar had promised. Even incapacitated, they could access and drain their dark well of power. Like remote start on a car.
“Everyone, shield!” Embry shouted at the top of her lungs.
All around, the sorcerers began to shudder and shake at a new pitch and frequency.
Were they going to combust? Explode? Tops off and lava flowing, mowing down and burning everyone and everything in their path?
They were going to go off like an atomic bomb. Take the witches with them. The graveyard. The house, the school, the town. Heck, the whole island was in danger. She couldn’t let that happen. Shewouldn’tlet that happen.
Shielded as best she could, Embry inched toward Balthazar’s father, hoping he might be so caught in his revelry that she could lay a hand on him and short-circuit the whole crew from the head. Crouched low, she reached out, aiming to strike the skin abovehis ankle. All she had to do was dart her hand out, shove aside his pant leg enough to make contact with his skin, and—
Strong hands hauled her up and back.
Embry smacked against a solid chest; her waist caged by an arm clad in the unmistakable sleeve of a black motorcycle jacket. Then his face was right next to hers. Balthazar’s eyes bulged, the skin surrounding his grimacing smile slack and waxy, as if melting off his bones under the pressure. Every vein in his face and neck pulsed black, distended with magic, ugly.
“You’ll always be mine, my love. Always, always,” Balthazar whispered, every word cloying, even as he tapped into his role as a sorcerer, his magic climbing again to reach the fever pitch of his family. “I love you with my heart and soul. I will never let you go!”
Unfortunately, he meant it, thanks to her perfectly cast love spell.
